The positions of companies in our Blockchain Game Companies for 2026 list are clearly significant, especially for those companies. But what’s perhaps more interesting is the trends that can be drawn from the entire set of 50.
For example, geographical spread is dominated by the US, with 44% of the 50 companies based there. There’s much less concentration among the remaining 28, which are evenly spread worldwide, though with a cluster in South Korea. Both the #1 and #2 listings – Nexpace and Wemade – are headquartered there.
(For the record, Nexpace is legally headquartered in Abu Dhabi due to its crypto-friendly environment, but the vast majority of the team are based in Korea, where Nexpace’s parent company Nexon is based.)
Digging into operational areas, one element that stands out is that 30% of companies changed their business focus during 2025.
This clearly reflects the level of uncertainty in the blockchain game sector. With investment funding now extremely difficult to raise, the immediate issue for many projects is generating revenue.
Although not all of these 30% of pivoting companies have actively positioned themselves as running games with degen rewards, it is notable that 33% of the Top 50 do market their games as having degen characteristics. Examples include risk-to-earn MMOG Cambria and YGG’s casual degen game LOL Land.
Of course, this sort of risk-for-asymmetric-rewards psychology attracts crypto whales and is a good way to generate revenue.
Two other trends that are related, although not always directly, are fully onchain games and games that position themselves as ecosystems.
The reason is that it’s much harder to open your game to third-party developers if large parts aren’t fully onchain or open source. Still, not all fully onchain games try to run an ecosystem, as this usually requires some level of community support and funding.
The final trend to highlight is whether projects are publicly adopting AI agents; 39% of the 50 have mentioned AI agents.
Again, projects that have pivoted their business and/or are fully onchain are more likely to be exploring such opportunities. But as the technology matures, it’s likely to be added to many different types of blockchain games.
In conclusion, the sector certainly experienced a tough year in 2025. Some companies adapted by changing their business models or adopting emerging technologies. But the majority just continued building on their existing long-term vision. As 2026 progresses on, expect to see more of this level of adaptability and resilience as new ways to play and interact with value networks and player-owned economies emerge.
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